Supermetallic conductivity in bromine-intercalated graphite

Abstract

Exposure of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite to bromine vapor gives rise to in-plane charge conductivities which increase monotonically with intercalation time toward values (for $\sim 6\text{at}\mathrm{\%}$ Br) that are significantly higher than Cu at temperatures down to 5 K. Magnetotransport, optical reflectivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements confirm that the Br dopes the graphene sheets with holes while simultaneously increasing the interplanar separation. The high-room-temperature mobility $\left(\sim 5\times {10}^4{\text{cm}}^2/\text{V}\cdot \text{s}\right)$ and resistance anisotropy together with the reduced diamagnetic susceptibility of the intercalated samples suggests that the observed supermetallic conductivity derives from a parallel combination of weakly coupled hole-doped graphene sheets.